During the summer, 2011, standoff between the president and Congress over the budget ceiling, Barack Obama committed a novice poker player's error: he telegraphed that he was bluffing by warning House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): "Don't call my bluff."

Obama's gaffe was a clear sign that he was, indeed, bluffing.

Yesterday, Hugh Hewitt published an article in which he detailed a list of poker "tells" in the president's rhetoric. According to Hewitt, the tells "betray an increasing distance between his reply and the truth."

When Obama is off the teleprompter, "That is when these 'tells' surface, giving all veteran Obama observers the verbal heads-up that the president has entered the land of thinly disguised fantasy or obvious dissembling."

Hewitt cites as tells "ahs" and "uhmms," filibustering, "feigned outrage that anyone would interrupt or question him," nonresponsive self-pity, and straw men.

Enjoy it all.

Reading Hewitt's article will prepare viewers for Wednesday's presidential debate and provide an entertaining, more sober alternative to the BS Bingo played by many Obama watchers.